Past and Present Tied Together at The Peddler

Past and Present Tied Together at The Peddler

Heather Mathison’s family has owned The Peddler in Spartanburg for 23 years.

The Peddler’s downtown location is on West Main Street at the gateway of Wall Street.

A small, possibly-overlooked detail ties together the past,
present and future for Heather Mathison and The Peddler’s new Downtown
Spartanburg location.

The hostess stand, topped with seating chart, reservation
lists and a small bowl of mints, is an old box television. It has since been
retooled to hold menus and other Peddler paraphernalia in drawers hidden behind
the bulging screen.

“I used to watch this TV when I was growing up,” she said.
“To have it here now is pretty cool.”

The old television – which belonged to Mathison’s childhood
neighbors – fits perfectly with The Peddler’s aesthetic; an old-timey
steakhouse that specializes in meat and potatoes. A
place where the classics are appreciated and un-meddled with. Dark wooden
floors sit under heavy but comfy dark brown tables and chairs in the
steakhouse’s two main dining areas. The restaurant’s ever-popular phone booth –
complete with metal bench and rotary payphone – made the journey from its
former home on East Main Street to its new home along West Main Street at the
gateway Wall Street.

A TV from Mathison’s childhood sits as a hostess stand at The Peddler’s new location.

“With our presence here, I think it brings a little more
life,” Mathison said. “This building has been empty for so long and is so
iconic to the Spartanburg community, I think just being part of being in this
building is a great compliment.”

Mathison’s family has owned The Peddler in Spartanburg for
23 years. She had kept an eye out for relocation possibilities because the
steakhouse’s former location wasn’t easily accessible for handicapped
restaurant-goers and it had outgrown the space. Now, the restaurant sits in a
much bigger space equipped with a larger kitchen.

The opportunity to occupy the space known to many as Abby’s
– previously home to a steakhouse bearing that name – came to Mathison and the
connection was perfect.

“Dating back to when this was Abby’s, I thought it was the
most beautiful building downtown. Even when there wasn’t much going on
downtown, people still came to Abby’s when it was here,” she said. “This
building has always been the building that I know, that is like a landmark, you
say, ‘it’s at Abby’s’ and that’s pretty clear. We’re located in a great area
where we’re kind of in the midst of everything.”

Not much, aside from the restaurant’s space, will change
with the move downtown. The staff and chefs have come over and the menu will
stay the same, much to the delight of many Peddler long-timers. Weather
permitting, outdoor dining will open in the spring in a courtyard area directly
across Broad Street from the entrance to Spartanburg City Hall.

The new space has many more windows and much less wall
space, so many of the accoutrement adorning the walls on The Peddler’s East
Main Street location are gone.

“The phonebooth is a huge one that everyone was like, ‘are
you going to take, are you going to take,’ and kids now don’t even know what a
phonebooth is, so that’s kind of cute. It’s one of the completely unique pieces
we brought over but we couldn’t bring everything over,” she said. “We wanted it
to be warm and comfy. We definitely want to be old school, straight-forward
steakhouse. We do it right and we do it good.”

The phone booth inside The Peddler made the trip from the restaurant’s former location on East Main Street.

Mathison said the new location is more open and easier to
find for new diners. She suspects long-timers will still venture out to The
Peddler, but an increased, diversified clientele will likely build as
travelers, namely those staying at the AC Hotel
Spartanburg, find their way to Downtown Spartanburg looking for a
perfectly cooked piece of steak and all the sides.

“We’ll still have all our loyal followers, we call them our
‘Peddler People,’ we’ll still have that but I think we’ll have a lot of new
people coming in,” she said. “We’re really excited about the traffic we’ll get
from Main and Wall street. I think this location will bring some of the
younger, 30-somethings in. A lot of people thought of us before as their mom
and dad’s place. We think this will be everyone’s place.”

The Peddler’s outdoor dining area should be open to customers by spring, weather permitting.